


Bits of Broken Machinery

by schrodingers__cat



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, POV Outsider, and the people your lives depend on, are That, but also like imagine being just some dude working for the Bureau, im not sure what writing style this is tbh, right??? right???, semi-omniscient narrator I guess???, so voidfishing that much important info hAS to have a couple negative mental effects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 21:50:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20682488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schrodingers__cat/pseuds/schrodingers__cat
Summary: The new Reclaimers sure are strange.





	Bits of Broken Machinery

The three Reclaimers are weird.

But not, like, normal-weird.

And... isn’t that strange? But everyone in the Bureau of Balance is at least a little weird. You have to be, to do this kind of work.

But they all agree the Reclaimers take it to the next level. 

———

Killian complains to Carey that they’re impossible to train.  
“It’s like one day, they’re a mess,” she says, hands pressed to her face. “They can’t do anything. Completely incapable.”

She watches as Merle completely forgoes his cleric duties in favor of smacking the training ogre upside the jaw with his warhammer. She watches Magnus somehow dodge away from Taako’s blasts _too early_, and _into_ his next blast, is that even possible? And Taako’s magic takes the easy dojo terrain and flips it on its head, until everything is levitating and on fire and there’s a horse, somehow.

“But then!” Killian flails an arm, nearly smacking Carey across the face. “The next day, they’re fricking incredible! It’ll be the best show of skills I’ve seen since we got to train with the Director.”

She watches in awe as vines encased in swirling golden light whirl from Merle’s fingertips and flowers grow around his teammate’s feet. Magnus, charmed with all manner of spells, shimmers with holy fire as he deals slash after deadly slash with his axe. And Taako’s summoning tentacles from the earth and turning enemy weapons from iron to wood with a wave of his hand, and as fire spell after fire spell springs from his staff, he doesn’t have spell-shaping but Magnus and Merle dodge it all perfectly anyway. 

“It doesn’t make any sense,” Killian groans, her face shoved into a pillow. Carey pats her head, a little unsympathetically. She had to deal with Magnus’ rogue training. 

———

It’s always strange to talk to all three of them at once. Separately, you might be in for a decent conversation. (Using “decent” as a loose term, of course.)  
Together, though, it’s like the three of them are on an entirely new wavelength. It’s... like they’re having a second conversation with themselves while talking to you—a conversation they expect you to be able to understand. References to celebrities that don’t exist, technology that’s never been invented—_what on Earth is a “TV?”_—they crack a nonsensical joke and expect you to laugh like it’s the funniest string of sentences in the world. 

Their conversations function like a well-oiled machine with a few loose bolts. Works like a charm, but clanks and rattles a bit. Ignore the sparks, I’m sure that’s fine. They finish each other’s sentences and communicate with glances and small hand gestures and don’t even seem to realize it. Talk to just one of them and all of it’s gone. Talk to two, or gods forbid all three, and you’re doomed to feel excluded in a conversation that you started. 

What’s even weirder, Avi notices once, is that the Director doesn’t seem to see it. Doesn’t seem bothered. In fact, she seems to understand it. Looks exasperated by the odd, disjointed jokes instead of confused. Laughs at a glance Merle sends her from across the room at a new coworker’s initiation party. And if Avi wasn’t a liiiiittle bit under the influence, he would’ve sworn he saw the Director pointedly glance back, and all three Reclaimers burst into hysterics. 

———

There’s an oddly haunting song that they sang once, echoing down the Bureau corridors. None of them would say where they learned it, when Johann asked, and it’s in a language no one understands.  
Davenport hums it, sometimes. A few HR guys still insist that he _harmonized_. (Most other employees don’t believe them.)

———

More often, though, it’s little things. Angus McDonald, World’s Greatest Detective, is an expert in little things. (No, it’s not because he is one.)

Like—sometimes the Reclaimers just... stop. In the middle of conversations, training exercises, walking. They just stop, and stare (and it’s an unsettlingly blank expression). But it only lasts for a few seconds before they blink, and laugh it off, and everyone rolls their eyes all exasperated like it’s just another symptom of their general goofiness. 

(Angus knows better. He found certain trigger words, weird ones, words like _search _ and _judge_ and _dust_ and _light_.)

———

He was sent to pass on a message once, and found all three of them outside on the grounds, looking up at the sky.

“Hey there kiddo,” Magnus said, voice thoughtful. 

“Um... hi, sir?”

“Mm. Hey, don’t you think the sky looks... super weird?” Magnus glanced down at him. “Like it’s always there, and it’s always been there, but... it’s just _weird_.”

“Not particularly, sir,” Angus frowned. “I’ve found the sky frightening, before? Such—such a vast expanse, haha!” He blushed, before regaining his composure. “But never weird.”

“It just looks real odd sometimes,” Merle shrugged. 

“Very suspicious,” Taako agreed.

“If you say so, sirs. But um—Miss Killian really wants to see you guys. She sounded angry.”

“I _told_ you she’d find out about the blankets.”

“But _how?!_” 

———

Angus _notices_ things. That’s why he notices, during one of his many magic lessons, the fluid way that Taako turns a glass of water into ink and a stray hair into a quill to write something down for him. But—when Angus asks how he did it, Taako looks surprised, like he didn’t even notice, and then asks if Angus has been reading one too many fantasy fairy tales. Says he isn’t skilled enough for that kind of transmutation. 

It’s why Angus can see that Taako lives like there’s a ghost living over his shoulder. That he reaches for a hand that’s not there, and laughs at jokes no one made. 

“It’s just me,” Taako says. “Always has been.” 

(But Angus McDonald has ridiculously high Insight, and he knows a lie when he hears one.) 

———

Johann is _mystified_ by the voidfish’s reaction to Magnus, and yeah, okay, maybe a little jealous. But he’s been taking care of the thing since he was fifteen years old and it’s never so much as placed a tentacle on the glass, much less _sang_ for him. But it likes Magnus, he can’t deny it, and even though Magnus seems just as confused as he is, he can tell that Magnus likes it too. And really, anyone who respects the voidfish like Johann does is welcome anytime. 

So Magnus keeps visiting. 

Each time, the voidfish seems thrilled. Each time, it twirls and flashes and sings its strange but admittedly beautiful song. 

Each time, Magnus seems on the verge of saying something—asking something, maybe. _Doing_ something. But he always stops short. 

Johann places the rosewood duck Magnus gave him on Candlenights onto his desk. When he comes back in the morning, it’s gone. After spending a few minutes frantically searching, he sees it floating in the voidfish’s tank, where it’s happily playing with it.

“Alright, fine, have it your way,” Johann grumbles. 

———

Brad Bradson’s just trying to do his job and help people. That’s all he’s trying to do. But it’s really, really hard to defy his family’s legacy of bloodshed when Merle is being _Like That_. It’s like he’s deliberately causing problems!

(Like he knows _exactly how_ to cause problems.) 

Brad is rather at a loss, because his office is full of an influx of coworkers and friends arguing about he-said-she-said-you-said and half of it is just the usual B.O.B. drama, but the other half can be traced directly back to Merle Highchurch. And what is he supposed to do with that?

If he’s being honest, the three Reclaimers are the only employees here besides Madame Director herself that he hasn’t been able to successfully psychoanalyze. And now it seems Merle has similar skills in psychoanalysis and is using them for evil, _nefarious_ things. 

But he likes to see the best in everybody. Maybe with guidance, Merle could use his powers for good? 

Brad sure hopes so. He’s not sure how much more “I heard you were talking to Delyrin yesterday! You _know_ I hate Delyrin!” he can take. 

———

It’s practically a moon-wide holiday when the three of them return from assignments. 

They come back from the Rockport Limited with a hundred stories of train-jumping and fire-breathing crabs (and an underlying _I trust you, we’re in this together_). 

They come back from Goldcliff with stories of a Red Robe and poison and so much that no one saw despite the broadcast, and somber expressions—though for what, they won’t say. 

They come back from the Millers’ lab with a new robot friend and the wildest story—the Grim Reaper tried to arrest them, can you believe that? And get this—Merle said that he said they’d died like, eighty-something times combined. It’s the weirdest dang thing. 

They come back from some little town called Refuge and they laugh at how they died, again and again. (_Magnus? Hey, pay attention buddy, we’re trying to brag about the bank robbery!_)

They come back from Wonderland and everyone’s so busy being in shock that they don’t notice how the odd mannequin Merle and Taako brought back shakes when it passes by Carey. They don’t notice the horribly still storm overhead or the strange, dread-filled expressions on the remaining Reclaimers’ faces. 

———

Nothing’s been the same since the new Reclaimers joined the Bureau. 

Is this... good, or bad?

Well, it depends on who you ask.

Some are all for them. You could make a good argument that it’s most of the employees. It’s the first progress they’ve seen at all in the year since the Bureau’s conception. 

Some are... pragmatic. They’re useful, yes, but they’re not the most moral of folks. What happens when they find all seven Relics? When they’re out of work? (When _everyone’s_ out of work?)

A few are bitter, and angry. The old Reclaimer sect that was put out of work, for one, despite the fact that they lost easily an average of three employees per mission. Leon the Artificer is also part of this category, but no one pays that too much mind. His raging makes good gossip. 

But no matter what you think of them—you can’t deny that the three Reclaimers really are very weird.

**Author's Note:**

> This is absolutely a product of me finishing/catching up with both balance and amnesty within a like 2-week period and dying physically and spiritually lol


End file.
